Went down to the Army Half Marathon to take photos yesterday morning. Me and Marcus, my Boss at Running Shots decided that we wanted to be nearer the finishing line. So we parked at Adelphi and walked over to the Padang. To our surprise, at Coleman Street we were stopped by a army boy who told us the road was closed. That we understand so we told the army boy we were walking on the pavement and not driving on the road. But no go, his instruction was the road and the pavement was closed to everybody, car and human. So we had to detour. And it was the same further down the road next to the Supreme Court at Parliament Lane. Eventually we had to walk all the way down to the Singapore River before we can get to the Esplanade Bridge.
This just proved my point that Singapore is not a race friendly place - not for the participants or for the spectators. Like the Shape Run 2 weeks ago. Somewhere towards the end, the 5 Km and 10 km crossed path and when I said crossed path, I meant it literally. The runners literally has to run across each other path in a X manner - the 10 km runners coming from the right and cutting to the left while the 5 km runners came from the left and cut across to the right!
And one of my pet peeve is that whenever there is a major race at East Coast Park, the service road is closed to traffic and so spectators and runners alike have to make their way there from Marine Parade or park at the faraway car park.
And don't get me started on the ungodly hours that races are flagged off. Even 10 km races are flagged off at 6.30 am! Whatever for?
It would seems that race organiser are only concerned with getting the sign up rate and everything else is secondary. As long as there are suckers who continues to sign up for races despite all the bad service and high fees, the organisers will not bother to improve and get their act right.
As for me, I voted with my feet long ago. No more local races unless it is a real cheap or unique race that I think is worth my money and early wake up!
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